It is common practice at central switching offices and other interconnection facilities to contain fiber optic and wire cables in protective troughs suspended horizontally above routers or other equipment where the cables terminate. Cables associated with a given piece of equipment are allowed to drop a certain distance in an exposed state from the trough above the equipment, and to enter cable ports of the equipment. Thus, if a new cable must be connected to equipment in addition to existing connected cables, it is not uncommon to lash the new cable to the existing cables where exposed so as to provide the new cable with ample support. It will be appreciated, however, that such lashing can disturb the orientation of the existing cables and increase signal attenuation within the cables, especially if the cables are disturbed near their associated equipment ports.
It is known generally to attach a so-called vertical cable management trough to either side of a router to contain cables that run next to the router. See, Cisco Systems, Inc., Model XR 12416 and XR 12816 Router Chassis Installation Guide (March 2009), at pages 3-23 and 3-24. So-called inter-bay fiber management assemblies are also known that are constructed to contain and manage the routing of fiber optic cable at different levels or bays of an equipment rack, or the bays of two adjacent equipment racks. See U.S. Pat. No. 6,541,705 (Apr. 1, 2003), U.S. Pat. No. 6,571,047 (May 27, 2003), U.S. Pat. No. 6,845,206 (Jan. 18, 2005), and U.S. Pat. No. 7,437,048 (Oct. 14, 2008). See also, ADC Telecommunications, Inc., Unequal Flange Rack Installation Instructions (February 2001), at pages 31-34.
While the equipment just described functions adequately, improvements in optical system cable handling are continually sought. For example, the patent application referenced above describes a cabinet with a plurality of cable retainer boxes (CRBs) mounted adjacent to either side of a given piece of equipment, enabling protection of cables contained inside the cable management cabinet and facilitating effective organization of cables. The CRBs are spaced vertically along either one or both sides of equipment. The CRBs each have an open end that faces into the cabinet for ingress/egress of cables from optical devices contained with the cabinet.
This cable management equipment has proven effective for use in central office switching facilities. However, recent improvements have advanced cable management practices even further.